Japan’s nuclear accident was a great human tragedy, but its long-term health effects have been exaggerated—and the virtues of nuclear power remain.
Denver has particularly high natural radioactivity. It comes primarily from radioactive radon gas, emitted from tiny concentrations of uranium found in local granite. If you live there, you get, on average, an extra dose of .3 rem of radiation per year (on top of the .62 rem that the average American absorbs annually from various sources). A rem is the unit of measure used to gauge radiation damage to human tissue.
The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends evacuation of a locality whenever the excess radiation dose exceeds .1 rem per year. But that’s one-third of what I call the “Denver dose.” Applied strictly, the ICRP standard would seem to require the immediate evacuation of Denver.
It is worth noting that, despite its high radiation levels, Denver generally has a lower cancer rate than the rest of the United States. Some scientists interpret this as evidence that low levels of radiation induce cancer resistance; I think it is more likely that lifestyle differences account for the disparity.
Now consider the most famous victim of the March 2011 tsunami in Japan: the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Two workers at the reactor were killed by the tsunami, which is believed to have been 50 feet high at the site.
But over the following weeks and months, the fear grew that the ultimate victims of this damaged nuke would number in the thousands or tens of thousands. The “hot spots” in Japan that frightened many people showed radiation at the level of .1 rem, a number quite small compared with the average excess dose that people happily live with in Denver.
What explains the disparity? Why this enormous difference in what is considered an acceptable level of exposure to radiation?
I can’t account for the disparity, but there’s no way to minimize the danger from Fukushima. One of the the world’s leading non-partisans experts on the danger is Dr. Helen Caldicott. When she say that “hot particles” are reaching the West coast and drifting across the country, that must be taken
seriously. Here is her assessment of the situation.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=24730&context=va
Get a life Alan, Caldicott is a gibbering anit-nuke loon. To my intense embarrassment she’s Australian.
Read the article Alan, then think for yourself. Don’t depend on partisans like Helen Caldicott. Or maybe you think we should evacuate Denver? A rational person who understands the arguments given can’t believe that the danger from Fukushima is that great and also not support evacuating Denver. So what’s it going to be; the real world experience (Denver), or the exposure models (theories) bandied about by people like Caldicott?
By non-partisan, does one mean neither Muslim nor Buddhist?
By world-leading expert, does one mean like Al Gore or Yasser Arafat?
She is an an activist with an MD in pediatrics that she left in 1980 for her activism and is associated with a Nobel Prize like Arafat is an expert on peace and Gore is an expert on science.
As the American colonel at Bastogne replied to the Germans, “Bananas and Brazil Nuts!” (And lima beans, potatoes and pistachios, oh my! ) Just “no way to minimize the danger? Maybe the facts in the posted article? And Muller’s being generous in calling the nuclear accident a great human tragedy. That was the tsunami, and even it registers as little more than a “hot particle” on the scale of human tragedies. DDT anyone?
On the rocks, if you would, Barkeep! ^_^
Caldicot is an exteme leftist.For the US and other free nations, she condemns all energy supplies which work, and supports all energy supplies which, on the aggregatge , are wrse than worthless. Her propanada against nuclear power is directed against free nations,not against China or Iran.
It’s time to tell these charlatans where to with their one sided garbage.
Open minds will welcome this more objective and tempered perspective of Muller’s. Only a zealot would fail to refute it step-by-step, fact-by-fact, and only invoke the name of a detractor in the hope that the very mention of the name will render those of us who know better insecure.